CD Cover Draft Flatplan

Now my filming is all done, I've also started to plan the digipak that goes with the music video. Below are my first sketches of the panels on and inside the CD. 

My inspiration for the front panel of the CD cover came from the Kings of Leon album that I analysed in my post about Brand Identity. They used a section of all four band members faces, as well as mixing it with an eagles face. On my cover I just wanted the two halves of the two characters in my video's faces, making their eyes the main focus by using direct contact, which all links into the video. 

Shot List

shot list

Where are these shots being used? 


Close-Up:
At the very beginning of the video where the music is just the lyrics being sung with a radio effect on the voice. This emphasises the microphone as a motif, as well as focussing the audience on the singing. 
Extreme Close-Up:
Extreme close-up shots similar to this are used in a few places in the video, as it helps to meet Goodwin's principles of matching lyrics to visuals, as the lyrics are 'and if you close your eyes in time' as well as 'sing it back to the eyes that shined once for you'. It also reinforces Goodwin's principle of the 'Notion of Looking', as there are both direct and indirect shot of both Ellie and Kieran's eyes. 
Two-Shot:
This shot will be used in different ways throughout the video as I need to portray the relationship between these two characters. The shot showing above goes with the lyric 'sing it back to the eyes that shined once for you' as it uses notion of looking by the characters both looking at each other, as well as lyrics to visuals as Kieran is singing it back to Ellie. 
Wide Shot:
I've used wide shots quite often in the video, which enables me to get quite a lot in one shot, for example the picture above has both characters sat on a picnic blanket with a picnic basket, a clock and calendar, as well as showing the location. 
Medium Shot: 
These shots are most common in the performance areas of my video, as I wanted to make sure Kieran's start image was portrayed to the audience, so they need to be able to see his face, but I also wanted the microphone as the motif to be visualised throughout as well.
Long Shot:
I've used a long shot of Ellie during the break-up section in the middle of the video, to reinforce the idea that they're not together at this stage, and she is isolated on her own with no-one else around. The example above is a medium long shot as I still wanted her to be able to be easily recognised by the audience as her character. 
Aerial Shot:
Perspective is added when using an aerial shot, and makes the audience focus on what's on the ground, and helps them to take in what the items, for example the clock/calendar, represent within the video (time passing by). The example above is a spinning aerial shot at the very end of the video to round up the ending. 

Final Storyboard

Final Storyboard

Filming Photos

Filming, a set on Flickr.

Here are some pictures showing how I filmed a range of shots with Ellie. Click on the title of the post to view the photos in full. 

Permission To Use 'Still Alive'

To make sure that no rules of copyright were breached, I contacted the artist of the track to make sure that I had permission to use his track for my video. 

Filming - Friday 21/10/11

What did I do? 
The last shots of the video were shot today, for example the spinning aerial shot to end the video as well as the months being ripped off of a calendar. I also shot the section where the shot is kept exactly the same, but changes on the beat and more clocks and calendars are added into the scene. 


Evaluation of the day?
Most of the shots worked really well and I managed to get all the shots filmed in the time I had allocated. However I did struggle to do the spinning aerial shot. I found it hard to keep the camera spinning above the mic, clocks and calendars without getting shots of my feet or just the plain grass. The shots do look quite handheld and not as smooth as I'd hoped for. When I look at the footage on the macs I'll see if there's a way I can crop the best parts of the footage, if not I may need to use a different way of filming the shot and try again. 

Creating A Brand Identity

Creating A Brand Identity

View more presentations from amydinsey.

Filming - Wednesday 19/10/11

What did I do? 
Today we finished filming all of the shots that my actors were in. We did the break-up and getting back together sections, as well as more clips of eyes for the fast-cut montage towards the end of the video. These sections included shots such as having the characters hold up books with the lyrics on, and kicking over the mic, which I'm hoping to edit and put into slow motion to emphasise this. 


Evaluation of the day?
I thought the day went really well, with both actors having a full understanding of what is left to do on the video. They'd got the mood of the video in their acting exactly how I wanted it. The weather was also similar so this should help with the continuity of the video. But on the downside some of the last shots were filmed slightly later on in the day and under some trees so the light wasn't as  good as it could have been. The dark effect does work well, but I'm concerned about the quality of the footage, so will have to spend time editing this to bring the standard up, or if it really doesn't look very good then I'll have to shoot that section again another day. 

Props - Books

In my video, I've planned a shot going from Kieran, to Ellie, then back to Kieran, both sat in the same place in the same position, holding up a book with the lyrics 'forget about what you don't know', each book having two words on it, as you can see from the picture. This uses Goodwin's principle of matching lyrics to visuals, as the visual is the lyric written out as part of the image. 
I used these during my filming today, and thought they worked really well and looked very effective.

Filming - Monday 17/10/11

What did I do? 
Today I filmed another big chunk of the video with both actors, shooting in the same place as last time (green by the church), but also shot in front of both the river and the church. I shot the 'happy' scenes of the video, that are used in the flashback of the beginnings of Ellie and Kieran's relationship. I also filmed Kieran lip syncing to a range of lyrics, including the chorus, in a variety of different locations and at different angles, meaning that I'll have much more choice when editing which shots to use. 


Evaluation of the day?
This time I managed my filming time much better, by remembering to turn the camera off as often as possible to save battery, so that I didn't run out again. This meant I did a full session of filming, doing even more than I expected. The weather was cloudy, but still had bright natural light, so shouldn't look too different to the conditions on Saturday.  

Filming - Saturday 15/10/11

What did I do? 

Today was the first set of filming that I've done with both of my two actors, Kieran and Ellie. We went to the grass area shown in my location shots and did the beginning section of the video, where Kieran is lip syncing the set of lyrics, either on his own, or with Ellie in the background or another place in the shot. We also did a range of shots of Ellie on her own, in different outfits and various different fake eyelashes that can be used throughout the video. 

Evaluation of the day? 

I thought that filming went really well, the weather was great as the sun was out giving great natural lighting onto all of the shots. However, the battery life on my camera is limited to an hour and a half of filming time, and eventually it ran out of battery, cutting the filming session slightly short. To overcome this, I arranged three more meetings with the actors for this week to finish off the filming. 

Problems with my actors!

To start off with, the lead singer of the band Panda Police (who's song I'm using), named Jamie, said that he'd be up for acting in the video, however due to his commitments at university we didn't have much free time at the same times, so would have made filming very fragmented and difficult. 


This made me decide to cut him, and so my friend Dan said that he'd take over and play the role instead. Unfortunately, he pulled out just yesterday due to family commitments, meaning that I yet again had to find another actor. 


I've chosen for my friend Kieran to now play the role, as suggested by Ellie (the actress in the video), and he seems much more reliable than the other two. He has a very rock star- like appearance already, meaning that his style will match really well to the pop/rock genre of the song. You can see a picture of him here: 


We've set a filming date for a couple of hours on saturday, due to him working til 4, but needing to shoot in daylight, and then we're still planning the times to shoot after school Monday-Wednesday next week. My shooting schedule will be uploaded as soon as these days and times are finalised.

Props - Red Lipstick

In my video I wanted to add subtle element of red throughout, making it one of my house colours, this could also follow on when making my CD cover and magazine advertisement to give all three texts a connection through colour.

 I also want to make the viewer connect the colour red with the happier times shown in the video, and then the black lipstick will be used on Ellie during the breakdown of the relationship, as the footage is in black and white, where it's at a more sad stage, before it's brought back to life with the footage in colour and the red lipstick is back.

Filming 11/10/11

Today I shot a few hours worth of a clock as time passed by, but managed to make the shot very dynamic by bluetacking the clock to my conservatory window, and setting the tripod at the same height so that the bluetack wasn't visible. 


You can see how I set this up from the picture, but I did start filming during daylight, and filmed until it was dark. 


I had a few problems with the reflections being slightly visible in the window, so will have to edit this to cut it out as much as possible. 

Vintage Mic

Today I collected the microphone that I'm going to be using in my Video from the singer from Panda Police who's lending it to me. Here's a picture of it: 

I think it'll make my video look really professional as long as it's used in the best way, as well as adding a sense of differentiation by having this recognisable motif. 

Shooting Schedule

Filming Schedule

View more presentations from amydinsey.

Audience Profiling for 'Still Alive'

 

To make an audience profile for my artist and song, I've used images of my actor and actress as they are part of my target audience.

As well as the demographic and psychographic profiles, you can see a lot about them by looking at their style of dress, and their care for their appearance.

Audience Profiling

Audience profiling is all about taking into consideration a text's target audience, and using this as research to develop the text and make it appeal more to the market. This can either have good or bad effects on the text, the reason being that the research must be read and applied to the audience in the way that they'd want it to be dealt with to effect the text. 





An example, in my opinion, of it having bad effects would be with Cher Lloyd's song Swagger Jagger. It seems that by the lyrics, Cher's trying to attract an audience of her age or slightly younger. However many of the audience think that she's tried to hard to attract them, by using lyrics such as 'tweeting' relating to Twitter regularly. This can sometimes annoy the audience, and put them off liking and buying the song. However a much younger audience do like the song,  and it managed to get to number 1, so Cher hasn't really missed out on success or attention, whatever reasons there are behind it. 

On the other hand, I think that Pixie Lott attracts so many different audiences, that her audience profiling is spot on. She targets a teen audience, girls as they like to be able to relate to her songs, and the boys due to her voyeuristic appeal. But she also has a broad audience of younger as well as older people to target, due to her being a pop artist and how this genre usually appeals to a very large audience.

First Set of Filming - 4/10/11

In my video, I'm going to use a range of shots of different clocks sped up so that it looks like the time is going past much more quickly, to show the different stages of the relationship, and to make clear to the audience which section is a flashback, and which is present day. This should make the audiences understanding of the video much clearer and easier to follow.

I set up my tripod facing a digital clock, and left it filming all day whilst I was at school. I gained over 9 hours of footage of time going by. This means that I can use a range of sections of the time sped up extremely quickly as connecting shots between new ideas in the video.

[picture of digital clock here]

At the time I was going to film the months being ripped away from range of calendars that I've sourced, but then realised that I need these as props when shooting with my actors, so will have to film these shots after that's done so that they're still in tact.

[picture of calendars]

More Props

As the month is now October, all the Halloween products are out in the shops, and so I've made best use of this by buying some extra props that I think will look really effective in my video.

I 've got ideas to use the same shot of Ellie's eyes open a number of times, but changing the fake eye lashes each time, and then could speed it up in a fast cut montage to exaggerate the lyrics 'close your eyes in time'. Then at the end of the montage to do the similar shot of Ellie's eyes closed to exaggerate the lyrics 'you might get to miss this'.

Ellie will also be wearing the various different eyelashes throughout the video, but this means I've got to be careful that the video flows and the different eyelashes don't change when I cut to a similar shot.

I've also purchased a plastic jewel-like ring that could match the red eyelashes and shown as she sweeps her hair out of her face to add extra colour and interest to the shot.

Feedback From Pitch

With the information gained from presenting my ideas to my class, I put together all of the feedback showing what they thought worked well, as well as any suggestions of how to make it better.

Music Video Ideas Pitch

I pitched to my class the initial ideas that I had for my music video, and got the members of the class to give me feedback on what they thought worked well, and what they thought I could improve on. This feedback will be presented in the next post.

Draft Storyboard

Draft Storyboard, a set on Flickr.

Here is my first attempt at drawing out the storyboard for my music video. However, I know that I personally can be very creative once I start applying my ideas, so it's likely that this will change slightly when the final storyboard and video are put together.